Several curious items in the news lately.
Seems the PCA disinvited David French to their General Conference.
My observation is that French has picked up where the late Tim Keller left off in trying to influence the Evangelical community to embrace progressive ideas. Both he and Russell Moore are know for promoting those.
There has been a lot of focus around the concept of Christian Nationalism. I get it it’s an election year and all the potent voter blocks need to be worked.
Check these out..
Then of course it’s an easy target 🎯 for the left.
And the long Series of 20 articles..
Heidelblog also has a series I plan to read. I ran into this part 30 today.
As It Was In The Days Of Noah (30): 2 Peter 1:16–21 (Part 1)
by R. SCOTT CLARK on May 15, 2024
You can find the whole series here.
What is God doing in the history of redemption and how to does that inform us about what he will do in the future? What were the Old Testament believers expecting? Has God promised to establish a literal 1,000 year kingdom on the earth? With this episode we begin a new Heidelcast series, “As It Was In The Days Of Noah.” These episodes will be a study in what the Bible says about eschatology, last things but more fundamentally, about the relations between heaven and earth. What is Chiliasm or Premillennialism? Postmillennialsm? Amillennialism? Are Amillennialists “liberals,” as some fundamentalists say? How do people arrive at their different eschatological positions? Is there a biblical way to get to a biblical position? After a couple of introductory episodes we are going to dive into Scripture itself by working through 1 and 2 Peter because I am convinced, to put it anachronistically, Peter was an Amillennialist, because it was through translating and studying 1 and 2 Peter in the summer of 1985 that I became convinced of Amillennialism. I was led to it by Scripture itself, by scripture, by interpreting Scripture with Scripture and by paying attention to the way that Scripture interprets itself. I was driven to it by Scripture.
In the second century AD (100s), ideas and myths such as these and others would be synthesized and developed into Gnosticism, the greatest heresy of the period and one of the most profound threats to the early post-apostolic church. Allan Bloom and Peter Jones are among those who have been calling attention to the widespread effects of Gnosticism in American life. 3 Gnosticism is perhaps the “cleverly designed myth” par excellence. It says that up is down and down is up. In the (Gnostic) Gospel of Thomas, Satan is the hero. In the (Gnostic) Gospel of Judas, he is the hero. The effects of Gnosticism on the American mind are among the principal causes of the insanity that we see about us today, where human sexuality and biology is openly denied, where some seek to make us say that males are to be regarded as females and vice versa.
It’s interesting that our Church is running a series …
The last area is Alpha. There was a large leadership training conference, in London Just over a week ago. I wrote to one of my contacts in Ireland and he provided some useful links to consider when thinking about Alpha in your church as an Evangelical tool.
I share what he sent me. I plan to watch the two videos.
Dear brother,
My wife and I will be flying out of the country in under 11 hours so this response will of necessity have to be brief.
In relation to the London Conference I didn’t write anything specific about it as I had already written about the Irish Conference in April – see – https://alphaireland.org/?fbclid=IwAR2KPbTiEqC6hpYV67yFSQHWKo4GwpEyM3wQIAh5VT4xnkBK8qOz5XzYY1c
Having glanced briefly at the line-up in speakers for London – https://www.leadershipconference.org.uk/lc24-on-demand – it is the usual ALPHA mixture of Anglican/Roman/Female pastors/ LGBT sympathetic like Archie Coates who succeeded Nicky Gumbel at Holy Trinity Brompton after coming from what is almost the ‘gay capital’ of Britain in Brighton (see LONDON: Pro LGBT Vicar appointed to lead Holy Trinity Brompton – Anglican Mainstream) and other unreliables.
You may be familiar with my video resources on –
Alpha – Attend or Avoid? (Part one) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6DjxpYR7mk
Alpha – Attend or Avoid? (Part two) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll0A00LqKeM
The various articles I have written on Alpha over the years can be accessed on these links –
Bottom line is that any ‘Christian course’ that Rome can wholeheartedly endorse is obviously deficient in genuine gospel truth and should be avoided by faithful pastors and churches. In times past Alpha actually didn’t give permission for churches to hold ‘Alpha-light’ versions but obviously some did but that only perhaps shielded people (mostly unregenerates) from a supposed holy spirit experience akin to the supposed ‘Toronto Blessing’ that Nicky Gumbel was open to. Has anyone ever been saved through attending an Alpha course? – perhaps – but that would be through God’s sovereignly acting in spite of Alpha and its deficiencies. Have some people been deluded into thinking they have got saved – without doubt because of ‘easy-believism’.
An effective sound alternative I have directed people to is ‘Christianity Explored‘
Just in recent weeks Rico Tice has severed his connection with the Church of England because of their basic apostasy – see – https://www.e-n.org.uk/2024/05/uk-news/rico-i-was-naive-about-current-culture-in-the-cofe/0fb80/
Hoped these few thoughts may be helpful
Yours for Christ
Cecil Andrews
‘Take Heed’ Ministries
Btw two good resources for understanding the Roman Catholic clutch are:
Rainbow Trout 